Posts Tagged ‘Mech Warfare’

So this video is SERIOUSLY long overdue, given that Mech Warfare 2010 happened back in April earlier this year at Robogames. We got crazy busy over the summer & fall and publishing this video sort of slipped under our radar. But- here it is in all it’s glory! If you don’t know what Mech Warfare is please do yourself a favor and check out the website or join our community for the latest Mech Warfare discussions!

When we were out at Robogames 2010, the multimedia crew from WIRED Magazine showed up and hung out with us for a bit. They loved the Mech Warfare competition and asked if they could do some interviews with the competitors. Here is the result!

We came, we blew stuff up, we conquered! Mech Warfare at Robogames 2010 in San Mateo was an absolute blast! We had Fon Davis of Fonco Creative & MORAV show up with his crew and custom build us a fully destructible 1/24 scale urban arena! Needless to say, the arena looked AMAZING this year! We had a total of 14 teams registered and close to 30 people participating this year; the competition is growing leaps and bounds over its first year. We’re still recovering from a long weekend at Robogames but we’ll have plenty of more coverage of the event in short time. For now, here are the winners, some pictures, and a great post & video by BotJunkie that highlights the event very nicely. We had some really awesome and nail-biting matches that were down to the wire, and everyone involved had a TON of fun- we hope to see even more people getting involved for next year!

This is an extremely versatile Arduino-software compatible microcontroller that packs a lot of features in a very small footprint. It is also the board used for the target/scoring system in the Mech Warfare robotics competition. Read more below:

The MINI robocontroller is designed for small robots. It incorporates a powerful AVR microcontroller, XBEE wireless radio, dual motor drivers, and 3-pin servo-style headers for IO.

The board includes all circuitry needed to control a small differential drive robot. It can also easily control up to 4 servos.

Seriously. I’m getting a bit tired of Phoenix hexapod inventor Kara Halverson, aka Zenta, constantly showing everyone up. We get it, you’re awesome at building awesome robots. Could you please just stop and give the rest of us a chance to catch up? It’s just cruel at this point.

The T-Hex is Zenta’s newest creation, inspired by all the Mech Warfare talk buzzing around the forums. He decided to jump in and build a ‘mech like’ hexapod, complete with a whopping 4DOF per leg. And of course, in the process, made the rest of us look like complete amateurs. Aesthetics aside this thing is amazing, and the fact that he has a working IK solution for it already just adds to the fact.

Forum member Xdream is working hard towards not only creating a bipedal Mech Warfare entry, but making it completely autonomous… and so far, he’s made some pretty solid progress. Heck, it’s more accurate than my current remote control setup. Check for updates on his project in the Autonomous Mech Thread.

Also, for those looking for an inexpensive bipedal Mech Warfare platform, the BRAT based Mech project over at Lynxmotion is turning out to be quite promising, with complete build instructions and code available.

We’ve been busily preparing for the iHobby 2009 show this week, but I figured I would share a little demo video of Giger. He now sports a TinyCylon eye from DaleWheat.com, and has a few new fighting moves up his sleeve, ready for some fights at Chibotica during iHobby! Walking gait is still obviously a work in progress, but what is being demonstrated in the video is the ability to pan/tilt the torso while walking, which makes the walking gait even more unsteady. Enough jabbering, here’s a bit of video!

This month’s Make Magazine (Issue 19) is the yearly Robotics Hobbyist special, and features my boss Matt Trossen once again stealing all of my glory and talking about his take on the current state of hobby robotics. That is okay however, and I’m prepared to take it with stride because anyone reading this blog knows I’m the true brains behind this operation. Not only that, but I’m also better looking (it’s the beard) and I embrace an air of dignity and modesty.

Speaking of my dashing good looks and superior mental prowess; Make also featured my currently shelved and ego-crippling project Hagetaka. Rest assured; my wife and 2 year old have picked up 2nd jobs to fund this project further and it will return with even stronger servos and bigger guns, ready to assist me in my plan for world domin- err, winning Mech Warfare.

After Year 1 of Mech Warfare, the competitors are busy working away to improve their bots, control scheme, weapons, etc… so it was only a matter of time before we would see someone adapting an iPhone to control their mech. Seeing as though the iPhone can be used for anything (Defibbing people, saving kittens from trees, backup generator for your house, etc), remotely controlling walking combat robots was the next logical step.

Builder Mannyr7 and his mech project CLYDE suffered some last minute setbacks that prevented him from competing at Year 1 (though he did show up to cheer us on and impress us with his professional airsoft gun setup), however he has taken the time to write up a tutorial and shoot a video on his latest iPhone control scheme. Definitely check it out, as its applicable to a variety of robots!

We want to apologize for being so quiet, but Robogames and the subsequent chaos of getting caught up has taken us all by a storm. We’ll be making up for it by posting a ton of content in the next few days.

Year 1 of Mech Warfare turned out great, better than expected for a first year competition. We came, we conquered, and more than anything we learned a LOT. Seven robots total showed up, though Murphy’s Law was in full effect and we only had 4 running consistently. That said, everyone involved still had a ton of fun, and Botjunkie and Society of Robots were there covering the action. Here are two quick highlight videos they put together, stay tuned for the official Mech Warfare coverage video from multiple in-arena cameras in the near future!